Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 381 posts

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#211

Post by StavrosK »

alokrai wrote: post #201
sonnyblarney wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree with that, however, their dogma is reasonable. And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc.. The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan. One might argue that it is this assumptio…

The fact that the Greek state is incompetent or corrupt was not unknown before the crisis. The banks granted loans to Greece knowing that the Greek state was incapable of paying back because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans. If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if thing…

Not only that, but the average (Greek or not) person has no grasp of even basic economic policy, and can't see farther than "I have a job that pays well, so what if all the politicians are corrupt? It's not like I can do anything about that anyway".

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#212

Post by gassiss »

Havoc wrote: post #140

So how does that work with say doctors appointments?

What almost always happen: the doctor plans 30 min appointments and takes 45-60 min for every appointment.

So if you book your appointment early in the day, you're good to arrive on time. But if you book in the afternoon, you'll be doomed with 2 hour+ waiting time.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#213

Post by wirrbel »

acchow wrote: post #86
poulsbohemian wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the culture. Historically if you told a German 5:00, that meant 5:00 - nor 4:59, not 5:01. "Fashionably late" is an American thing.

I just don't understand how this works at a house party. You invite 20 people over for a BBQ at 2pm. Here's possible conversations I can envision in America: "Thanks for the invite! I actually have a haircut appointment at 2, but I'll come right after" or "Thanks for the invite, but I have a a haircut appointment at 2..." "what? No worries! Come join whenever you can; we want to see you!" "Great. I will thanks!" So h…

A more interesting metric would be: You are meeting a buddy for dinner at some pizza place at 18:00. You are there punctual for whatever reasons, at what time would you ask yourself whether you would text your buddy? I think in Germany, the first text message might run 18:05 or 18:10 with lose ("I am sitting inside already") kind of a thing.

The haircut example would just mean you tell your friend in advance that you will arrive later.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#214

Post by sonnyblarney »

alokrai wrote: post #201
sonnyblarney wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree with that, however, their dogma is reasonable. And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc.. The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan. One might argue that it is this assumptio…

The fact that the Greek state is incompetent or corrupt was not unknown before the crisis. The banks granted loans to Greece knowing that the Greek state was incapable of paying back because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans. If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if thing…

"because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans."

I doubt this. The ECB and EU have not ever done this, and thinking through it just for a minute means that this is highly unlikely. I can't fathom why anyone would actually think this is going to happen with any degree of certainty. But I get the impetus that 'way back in the 2000's' that people might have 'felt this way'.

Also - there's a lot of fault still on the side of the Greeks in this case.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#215

Post by tchaffee »

mlevental wrote: post #209
tchaffee wrote: post #191

São Paulo is a city of over 12 million people, the largest city in the southern hemisphere of our planet, and is almost 10% of the Brazilian population. Almost everyone I meet with in SP is on time for work related meetings. I haven't noticed a difference between SP, the UK, the USA, or many of the other places I've worked. Generalizing about an entire country when that generalization is wrong for its biggest city ma…

also anecdotal claims are pretty irresponsible too: it's well documented that people are less punctual in warmer climates and in developing countries https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/67419

The article itself was anecdotal so refuting it only required an opposing anecdote. While I appreciate an actual study, I'd have to see something specific to São Paulo for it to be interesting or useful to me. I'm not going to come to any conclusions about a specific city based on a study so broad.

Also, the article summary you cited says nothing about punctuallity. It talks about pace of life. Where can I see the full study?

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#216

Post by sonnyblarney »

StavrosK wrote: post #211
alokrai wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the Greek state is incompetent or corrupt was not unknown before the crisis. The banks granted loans to Greece knowing that the Greek state was incapable of paying back because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans. If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if thing…

Not only that, but the average (Greek or not) person has no grasp of even basic economic policy, and can't see farther than "I have a job that pays well, so what if all the politicians are corrupt? It's not like I can do anything about that anyway".

The average Greek is in on the scam by not paying any taxes, or expecting to retire with full pension earlier than Germans do and voting out anyone who considers changing this. It's a problem from top to bottom.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#217

Post by YinglingLight »

Berunto wrote: post #28
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #24

"My impression as to your cheap labour was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied and easy-going race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of a national heritage." This excerpt appears in Ha-Joon C…

So how long does it take to change the mindset and behavior of a complete country? ~80 years?

One generation. Hint: it involves women and birthrates.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#218

Post by tluyben2 »

mattlondon wrote: post #199

In the UK as a native Englishman I would be totally ok with people turning up late to a party/BBQ/whatever. No problem (although not for a dinner party where you need to prepare etc) But if you agree to meet people at a certain time, then being more than 10-15 minutes late without letting the person know is just rude, selfish and inconsiderate. Sure problems come up - these days there is zero excuse to not let the pe…

It depends on context. But yeah, I can say the same thing; get a grip on being already aggressive about this even though no-one here probably insulted you. It is the most insane sight when Brits come to live in southern Spain and are spending a lot of energy the first year(s) on coping (red heads, shouting, picking fights with people who are just having a chat blocking the road etc) with the fact that no-one will ever come on time. Or at all. And without warning. The fact that you have such obsessions doesn't mean everyone has or needs to have, even though you might call that whatever you call it in your post.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#219

Post by Aaargh20318 »

chairmanwow wrote: post #105
coldtea wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil. Or inversely, it's a western problem that makes it difficult to live humanely and stress-free and incurs great human toll -- and at the point when we're so technologically advanced to not need…

“Western problem” yikes. To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit…

> Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business.

Unfortunately, the people benefitting from the 'economic success' aren't the same people as those who are required to be efficient in everything.

It would be much better to look at quality of life than at profits. The only thing amounts of money have going for it is that you can easily put them in spreadsheets.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#220

Post by ff317 »

laughingman2 wrote: post #134
coldtea wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses in Mozambique to compete directly with the U.S. economies of scale "creates a level playing field" and doesn't inhibit their growth in certain key industries at all. It's easy for someone to "genuinely believe" something when their career (as policy advisors, bankers, development "experts", etc) an…

Exactly, this is why extending scope of democracy (workplace democracy, more decentralization, liquid democracy, direct democracy etc) is important, intellectual/political/economic/corporate elites with power however much "enlightened" they are , without having skin in the game lead to disastrous policies. One person, One vote is the least flawed way to gather signal from actual people who have skin in the game.

Direct democracy is still pretty awful though, especially for anyone who falls into any kind of true numerical minority category: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority .
Post reply on HN